Founded just a couple of months ago, Mumbai based Trine Studios has shared with Animation Xpress.com that its gaming division is developing a Real Time Strategy Game (RTS) themed around an Indian Epic. Budgeted at Rs 12 Million (1.2 Crore) the Beta build of the game is slated to be ready by August ’07.
Trine Studios is founded by the brother duo of Somil and Sangam Gupta and is privately funded. Somil heads the animation division while the gaming division is led by 21 year old Sangam Gupta who is armed with a game design degree from Fullsail, USA and has had a short stint at Electronic Arts.
Both the divisions will operate out of separate facilities at separate locations and will focus on their core strengths.
The 16 member (current size) team at the gaming division boasts of a mix of experienced Indian as well as International talent from the US, Italy and West Indies.
Sangam is convinced that his team at Trine will be able to complete the production of the RTS within the targeted time frame that they have set for themselves. He says, “We are currently ready with the the game design and concepts for the factions, units, buildings and level. The tech has already been integrated into our game framework. Also within a couple of months we are moving to our larger studio which will be around 2,400 sq feet at Andheri’s Laxmi Estate. Once there we will ramp up the team to 40 people”
“We are using Gamebryo, one of the best game engines in the world. We are also in advanced talks with A.I implant one of the leading AI engine developers to license their technology for the game” he adds.
The RTS is being readied for Next-Gen Console/PC as well as online versions.
Commenting on the features of the game Sangam shares, “The RTS game which we are developing uses advanced rendering technologies such as HDR (High dynamic range), Continous LOD (Level of detail) – so you can zoom in zoom out of the game to a amazing level without choking your system, Terrain streaming is already currently being implemented which enables to have battles in “Gigantic” maps . With the inclusion of LOD in the game the engine generates low poly as well as high poly characters itself based on the camera. This enables to give the game a much more realistic look and have more units on the screen than ever before!”
Talking next about the online version of the game and the prospects for Online Gaming in the country, Gupta added “Online gaming in India has just picked up its speed with the recent improvements on bandwidth. With more ISPs coming into the scene this just means that within a year or two India can match bandwidth as that in Europe at least. More and more families are getting broadband installed in their homes. This is just a beginning of a whole new genre of gaming which is also known as MMOG (massive multiplayer online gaming) which immerses the players to such an extent that it makes them believe that they are actually living an extra life!
“The typical consumer of games in India is the student who sneaks out of his studies for a couple of hours and enjoys his gaming. Keeping that in mind, the complete playable length of our game is going to be around 2 hours so that the gamer can have a complete fulfilling experience in the amount of time he gets to play. This scale also makes it practically possible for us to complete the production within the time frame we have set for ourselves. It also helps keep the budget in check and makes the whole proposition a viable one” he concluded.
Besides the RTS that it is working on, Trine is working out possibilities with Bollywood producers for creating PC and Online games around their latest movies.